If you’re like most people that we’ve seen for Physical Therapy, then you’ve suffered from back pain at some point in your life. Statistics show that, currently, 80% of the population have had at least one run in with some type of pesky back pain. And, unfortunately, chances are good that the way that you handled the back pain wasn’t the best possible solution. All too often, people go for high-tech tests, heavy drugs, or surgery too soon.
When Physical Therapy patients come into our clinic, one of our main goals is to help patients get back that feeling of independence. With each Physical Therapy visit, every patient starts to take little steps toward feeling like they’re getting back to normal, getting back to their every day routine. And who doesn’t like a little bit of normal?
In my previous post, we began the series on my favorite exercises for back pain coming from sciatica that I give all my Physical Therapy patients in the Elizabeth and Jersey City clinics. We started out with a simple prone prop up on the elbows. Now that we’ve got the basic prone prop up on the elbows down pat, and once that exercise can be performed with absolutely no discomfort or pain, we can now follow the progression into the next motion:
It’s easy for me as a Physical Therapist to tell my patients that they’re lives are about to be completely changed for the better because they’ve made the decision to come in for Physical Therapy. But it’s even easier for me to prove my point when they actually begin their Physical Therapy, because it’s one thing to say it, but another thing completely to see it working on yourself day after day.
Have I really made sure that my patient has all of their questions answered? Do they feel secure about this visit? These are questions that I’m always asking myself when my patients are progressing through their Physical Therapy visits.
And this is exactly why we, as a group of Physical Therapists, have made it our company culture over the past 13 years to make sure that we take our time with our patients, and that all their needs are met during each and every visit.
As a Physical Therapist, there are many exercise and manual therapy tools that I have at my disposal, and as Physical Therapist that specializes in running, I have almost 2 decades of hands on Physical Therapy experience with runners and athletes of all shapes and sizes. But for the last 3 years, I’ve been using a tool, the first ever in both Elizabeth and Jersey City for Physical Therapy patients, that has made my process so much more streamlined and efficient for knee pain
When back pain hits, it can be very hard to think of what to do first. All of my Physical Therapy patients display the same feelings of shock, confusion, and depression over not being able to do the things that they were normally accustomed to doing.
For Jaimele, that was playing football. As a competitive weekend warrior athlete, his participation in his football league was interrupted by severe back pain due to a fall.
In order to help my Physical Therapy patients in Elizabeth and Jersey City get back in to tip top shape after experiencing a setback due to the symptoms of sciatica creeping up on you, l have created what I like to call “The 3 Phases of Healing.” These 3 phases create realistic, definable goals that you, the patient, can use to measure your progress on how your Physical Therapy is progressing. So let’s go through each one, shall we?
Planking. It has become one of the “go-to” exercises for so many gym rats that are looking to strengthen their core in order to stave away back pain.
But how effective is a plank, really? Dr. Asha has the answer for you now!
Recently I have discussed the stretches necessary for preventing lower back pain in the workplace as well as my top secrets for reducing pain upon the start of a lower back pain attack, but I am here today to answer the questions about lumbar braces.
Many people always ask me on their first visit “Should I buy a lumbar brace” or what can I buy, or “I saw this on an infomercial, it looks great, and I just bought it what do you think?”
Well…
